Apology

There comes a time when we must face that our time has come. At 58 I have no marriage, no country, no health, and no career. My beloved wife died on the 31st of July, in what has been the worst year I could ever imagine. She died at home with me, which was where she wanted to be, and I will always be grateful that's where she wanted to be.

Goodbye my love, I'm coming.

When I was 10 years old and America was being shredded by the war in Vietnam I knew that our disregard for life, human and otherwise, had to change. So in my young and flailing way I set out like Don Quixote, to challenge those values. My failure therefore was predictable. Had it been only a material failure, I would have been all right with that, but there have been so many failures, on so many levels.

My life has been a bit like a movie I saw once (or actually saw once twice in a row, a mistake I assure you!) with Bill Murray called Groundhog Day. I, like the central character in the movie felt just as painfully aware of the outcome at the beginning as at the end of the day, yet was unable to change anything! It's been like watching a slow motion train wreck.

I’m done here. My wife's death shattered my spiritual dreams in this life, and this election my earthly dreams, while I've watched my family of origin and my wife's family of origin tear themselves apart, through nothing but base impulses, bad character, and lack of introspection.

I’ve seen human nature clearly now. Half of humanity, beset by demons, are viciously determined to tear down any progress the other half can make. That is true on the level of nations, communities and families. Those of us who try to create a better world must watch these fear-frozen millions, frothing at the mouth with racism, hatred, envy, greed, lechery, suppressed violence and God knows what, to destroy any good we might accrue to humanity through centuries of self-sacrifice. They long for a return to the dark ages and the ethics of the abattoir, where their souls are at home.

If that is not a joke of cosmic proportions, I don’t know what conceivably could be! So I’m done here.

To all the beautiful people - those who go on trying (you know who you are!) - I would say I’m sorry but of course you don’t need me. We go on as long as we can because that’s how we’re made. The good cannot live without hope any more than the evil can live without tearing it down. That is the tragic nature of the world.

May you all go on as long as there is room for you to have your own, hopeful life!

Goodbye to the good people, to my friends! You know who you are!

Brent Hightower

The Way Forward

Okay, it's simple. We elected Biden. So far so good.
Now what we need to do, without fail, is get these ballot initiatives on the 2022 ballot.

1. Campaign finance reform,
2. Universal health care.
3. A conversion from fosile fuels.
4. A 100 miilion dollar limit on aggragate wealth.
4. An $18 dollar minimum wage, automatically adjusted for inflation.
5. The repair of America's aging infrastucture.

They keep telling us Americans don't want these things, so let's get them on the 2022 ballet, and find out!

If young people really want to put their youthful energy into a direction that will get results. This is it. If we can't create a national ballot initiative, we should get them on every state ballot we can. That would create enormous pressure on national government.

Brent Hightower

Election 2020

Well, the election is over. I voted for Biden, and I’m relieved that Trump will not be actively destroying America for the next four years, but I don’t see much to celebrate. We live in a dangerously divided country, with little prospect of healing that divide, and those who just want to reestablish an un-corrupted democracy that doesn’t poison our planet until it's destroyed are blasted by politicians and media as dangerous radicals.

Meanwhile the working classes, having been cast off by their corporate owned government, have become more angry and disillusioned year by year, until at last they are courting Fascism.

For democracy to survive we need, first and foremost, absolute campaign finance reform. Without it, we have no real democracy and no hope of reversing the damage already done to our political system and our planet, through the appeasement of every private interest, no matter how destructive.

And now into this mix sallies our unlikely hero, Joe Biden, who has made a very long political career out of satisfying every corporate interest that ever held out to him a dollar, saying he will be a leader for "all Americans." God help us if that’s just a signal to every corrupt private-interest that his presidency will be business as usual, because if it is than his will probably be the last democratic presidency od the United States.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2020 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

The Takeaway form the Election

I know people are sick of the subject of politics right now. God knows I am! But there’s one takeaway from the election of 2020 that is essential. There are those already saying that this election shows the Democrats cannot push an aggressive program of reform. That is exactly wrong!

The enormous enthusiasm for Trump and on the other side of the isle for Sanders, both show the utter disaffection of the great majority with the stats-quo! Americans (and particularly the vast American working class, though many of them are too unsophisticated to recognize their real antagonist) are fed up with the business as usual!

If the Democrats don’t provide Serious Relief to the majority from generations of oppression and exploitation, from corporatism and Wall Street, the next time around we will most likely end up with Fascism! And though the over-privileged may think they would prefer that to social justice, if they get it, they will find they are were wrong.

Brent Hightower
Copyright Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

The Danger To Democracy

Due to the great importance of this election, I'm going to post about it today, rather than about literature. I'm posting the below essay from 2016, from my book," Inner Demons and other Essays," because it so clearly forshadows the issues in hte current election. I believe it's worth reading, in that it shows the Democrats can no longer afford to uphold the interests of Wall Street and corporate power, over those of the American working class. The enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders arose from the same frustrations as those that have led to the right-wing enthusiasm for Donald Trump. If the Democrats ignore this massive dissafection, and merely continue to serve corporate interests and Wall Street, they will be dangerously courting the rise of fascism in America.

May, 2016

An Open Letter to the Democratic National Committe

I have voted for the Democratic candidate in every presidential election since 1980, as well as in most of the midterm elections during those years, but, during this last election, the election of 2016, at age 54, I caucused for a candidate for the first time. That candidate was Bernie Sanders. Because of his long established progressive voting record as one of the very few Independents in Congress, I had faith in his integrity, and I was immediately attracted by his agenda, centered around the working class, and the middle class, against monu-mental corporate wealth.

For the first time since 1969 I felt the thrill of an energized reform movement with a viable leader and a groundswell of voter enthusiasm. It was clear that a vote for Sanders would be a strong repu-diation of the "democratic leadership council" and their center right candidates who have sprung from it: candi-dates who are less and less distinguishable from Republicans as time goes by. Like so many other people, I saw Sanders as a genuine representative of the people, - someone who could reverse the decline of our democracy which has been further corrupted every year by the power of vested interest. More than anything, it was that last concern that brought out the public in unprecedented numbers in the current primary season.

What I saw at my local caucus this year was unique in my memory in American politics. In contrast to the lack-luster turnout in most caucuses, there was not just a high turnout, there was a feeling of vibrancy, of electricity in the air. In our town of about 40,000, there were literally thousands of people standing in long lines to participate. The result was that Bernie Sanders won over Hillary Clinton seven to one. For the first time I remember since the candidacy of Bobby Kennedy, real passion was ex-pressed for the candidate and for the potential of our de-mocracy.

Sanders was clearly bringing in people who haven't voted in years, many who have, perhaps, never voted before at all. Of course, there were also the same old party hacks as well, who were not in the least happy about that tremendous turnout – their looks said so as plain as day. They seemed to be saying "I don't know who these people are, but the sooner they get out of here the better."

The party machine was not happy about this surge of ex-citement, except to the degree they could co-opt it in the next election for establishment candidates. They would then discard or ignore these excited voters as quickly as possible afterwards so they could get on with business as usual, as it has been in America for over fifty years now.

The machine would indeed like these pesky Sanders supporters to vote for Clinton, the business as usual can-didate, and then go away. But, from what I saw at the caucus I attended, they are not going to go away this time, and if the party tries to shove the status quo down people’s throats once again, all they will do is cause the party damage, perhaps irrevocable damage. The Repub-lican Party has already been damaged by its unwilling-ness to see the vast disillusionment in America, and Democrats are on the verge of making the same mistake. A significant percentage of those who voted for Sanders in the primaries simply will not vote for Clinton in the election, ever. It's that simple.

I've voted Democratic for over 40 years and I have yet to see my political beliefs actually represented in American politics, and I am not the only one. There is a tremendous level of resentment built up over the decades that the actual people of this country have been frozen out of the political equation. The party establishment must recognize that there is now a serious risk in not acknowledging the reality of people's bitterness.

Those center-right Democrats who have benefited from voter complacency will tell us that those who voted for Sanders will yet again get in line and vote for the establishment candidate, simply in order to thwart Donald Trump. In most elections, that equation would probably be true, but they may be wrong. A simple measure of that deep disaffection can be seen in the percentage of Republicans who voted for Jeb Bush in this election. Considering his family’s status in the party, his defeat was epic, and whether the Democratic party wants to acknowledge it or not, there are a lot of people out there who would actually vote for Trump as opposed to Clinton in this election simply to see somebody, anybody, other than a candidate of the establishment.

Brent Hightower
Copyright Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

My Books Finally Arrive!

I finally got the print copies of all of my books today (the cover image of "Ode to Belladonna" is above), and aside from the small glitches that seem inevitable in a first print run when self-publishing online, I am very happy with them. They are beautiful!

Unbelieveably, in working with Microsoft to produce a book, page numbering is often the hardest thing to get right! The copy of "Ode" has no pagenation, and in "Heir" I don't like the way the page numbers look on the page. One of the title pages is also set incorrectly. When you self-publish you have to wear too many hats! But these are monor issues that I can readily address. The missing page-numbers in "Ode" are okay, for now I think, because the book has short chapters that are innumerated.

I love the overall look and feel of all of these books!

How odd that they arrived on election day! I don't know what to make of that! Is there some great cosmic sense of humor in the universe? If so, it's a slightly twisted one in my experience.

When all is said and done though, having these books before me, even imperfectly published as they still are, makes me very happy. 20 years of work all but done, anyway Yeah!

02, November, 2020. A Personal Perspective

I got up again in the afternoon the day my wife had died in the morning, and I said to myself, “I wonder what the world looks like now that she's gone?” I looked out the window and it was overcast. The sun that had shown so brightly at dawn was then eclipsed by gray. The sunrise, that perfect red disk that had flamed out of a blue sea had vanished, overcome by the scudding mists of a threatening storm, and I said to myself, “I knew it would be worse when she was gone.”

I’ve never felt such strong feelings as in these last few months. Desperation, dark humor, wistfulness, rage, tragic absurdity, horror and a kind of awe, as each new day tolls the crooked bell of our cracking history.

This is a turning point in time, for me, for humanity, for life itself. It’s like the fall of the Roman Empire, or the start of the Second World War, only more momentous in its implications.

For myself, I've lost my wife, finished the books I’ve been working on for 20 years, suffered the worsening collapse of my health, all while Western Democracy hangs by the barest of threads, and earth’s ecosystems.

The collective beliefs that have held together civilization and sanity are fracturing, and every day the bell tolls louder the chiming of some omniscient, diabolic clock.

The lunatic on the corner predicting our doom is sane, while the passing masses bustling on their responsible ways, are mad as hatters!

No, there's never been a time like this in its sense of living out some outlandish prophesy! Pity all the living things on earth who, lacking any better savior, must look to us for their survival. Pity the unborn generations and what this moment means to them.

I have no clear vision of the future, just this view of an ever gathering storm. May God, or Justice, or Happenstance will that this storm will break! I am weary unto death of this dark vision, while somewhere inside against all reason still resides that vision of the dawn.

Brent Hightower
Copyright Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

A Loveless House

From my recent collection of poems, A Loveless House and Other Poems:

A loveless house is filled with ghosts,
Of what might have been, and what will never be;
Some vital force is absent here, withdrawn into itself,
Retreating into empty corners, and lurid shadows.
This slanting sun, this pale evening light,
Cannot dispel the all-pervasive darkness.
Here, where life begins, and also where it ends.

Outside I hear children, distant laughter,
Voices that echo through the closing year.
Yet now there are no children here -
But just this litany, this faint murmuring
From long ago, passing through cracks in time -
These children, for fifty years forgotten here,
In this house, still waiting for their mother.

There are no ghosts in joyous houses,
No brooding reflections of bygone days,
Nor heavy shadows like these beside the bed,
Falling more darkly now than even memory.
Where love has been the spirit needn’t linger.
A loveless house is filled with ghosts,
Regrets resounding through eternity.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2020 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

On Human Dissociation

One very interesting thing about the internet is that you get to see a profound aspect of human behavior in action. Often, people who are not in many ways stupid, simply cannot be made to consider questions in the light of (even very simplistic) reason! We see this literally all the time, and I believe it is a kind of mental dissociation. I also believe that it may be THE PROBLEM!

Clearly a lot of people dissociate when confronted with facts that don't fit their pre-conditioned pre-conceptions, and when you think about the full ramifications of this it could well explain the entire mess we are in as human beings.

I believe that this is the case, and I've been trying to communicate it for years. (But when I do, I find that people generally dissociate!) Their eyes glaze over. They just won't go there.

Nevertheless, when one thinks about it this just explains so much in terms of why so many people cannot be brought to reason! I believe our psyches (that is to say most of us) are fractured through the trauma of what we optimistically call socialization. When you look at the way (particularly boys) are socialized, it is clearly a process designed either consciously or subconsciously, and I believe the latter, to break their psyches - to separate them from their more empathetic, creative, and intuitive selves - to break them, to render them un-whole. And there are strong reasons for this embedded in Darwinian survival.

Our almost universally accepted patterns of socialization in modern society are actually very primitive, rooted in survival of the fittest, and they are traumatizing. This is the proverbial elephant in the living room. It is simply amazing that we have evolved to both participate in this process, and at the same time blind ourselves to its paramount importance, generally speaking even to its very existence. This is mass dissociation. Though we may see the terrible results, in situations such as those at Columbine, we stil block out their meaning and implications.

We are acting-out ancient patterns of behavior that have become largely instinctive. So to many, reason and critical thinking are a direct challenge to both their instinctual and conditioned behavior - in short to their entire understanding and means of dealing with the world. Is it any wonder then that they react violently and fearfully when challenged to change?

Aside from all the unnecessary cruelty and suffering this process produces, these ancient behaviors (exemplified most clearly by what is allowed or even condoned to go on, on our playgrounds) aren't up to the challenge of producing people sufficiently evolved to handle modern technological society.

The great struggle we now see taking place isn't one of the left-wing against the right-wing. It can be seen more clearly as growing pains - as our struggle to rise to the occasion where advanced society is concerned - of whether we can evolve into the role that our tremendous technological capability demands we evolve to fill.

Whether it was a good idea to promote technology to the point that only an advanced consciousness can wield it is an open question. But our future (if we are have one) will be determined by whether (as many people see, or can can sense) we are able to rapidly evolve in our essential beings. That cannot be done unless we examine this hidden question of our socialization. Our future must be determined by a renewed understanding of what Socrates told us us 2,500 years ago. "Know thyself!"

Every major forward thrust in Western civilization and thought has been derived from a renewed examination of the remarkable realizations of the ancient Greeks, and we have gone too far to turn back now. It was Socratic realization of the supreme importance of self-knowledge that lay at the heart of Greek understanding, and of those subsequent advances in civilization. In our era, if we are so inclined we could travel farther, faster down this road of self-understanding, due to advances in modern science. Yet it is self-knowledge itself, not science or technology severed from it, that is our only means to salvation.

A growing understanding of the ways our primitive patterns of socialization are preventing us from entering our own as a species truly capable of stewarding life on earth, is the first step on that journey. In this new, conflicted era, we must strive in every way to understand, with all possible honesty and objectivity, what we are as human beings in all our complexity - in order to avoid a self-fulfilling prophesy of destruction.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2020 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

Mental Restorations Foundation

This is a rare post unrelated to writing. Rather, it is a personal appeal:

We are all experiencing stress in this time of COVID, but the people charged with helping us, and protecting us - our veterans, first responders, health care professionals, and others – are now coping with truly harrowing circumstances. The suicide rate and the rate of mental crisis in these professions has risen to staggering proportions.

But there are now people in our communities rising to the occasion to help.

One such organization is being formed here on the Island of Hawaii. It’s called Mental Restorations Foundation, and it was founded recently by Micah Gauthier. Mental Restorations Foundation provides community and peer-support for those in crisis, through shared outdoor activities. These activities will include deep sea fishing, scuba diving, farming and more - as well as a supportive community of friends who can connect in person, and on the web, for both social interaction and peer-counseling.

Outdoor exercise and group interaction are among the most essential factors for the preservation of mental health. Other factors are a sense of purpose, a sense of being appreciated, and of having a recognized place in the community. MRF hopes to provide all these things where they are needed most, regardless of the individual’s economic circumstances. Will you help by becoming a member today?

Sincerely,
Brent Hightower
Mental Restorations Foundation

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/308092300087980/
Website: https://mentalrestorations.com/
Blog: https://mentalrestorations.com/
Phone: 1(808) 315-5594

A Note on Reactivating this Blog

Having concluded to reactivate this blog, I thought I'd say a few words about the reason for it's existence. The computer age is changing writing in ways none of us yet fully understand; so writers are in the position that they must reinvent the wheel. When I started this blog I intended it to be a place for myself, and other writers, to publish ther work; but it evolved into a place where I create, and also get work before the public.

Most of the writing I'm publishing here is in one stage or another of creation. Very little of it is finished work, and this seems to me to be a strange way of approaching writing.

How, or why, I ended up with this format I don't know. It simply seemed the best way to stay engaged with the work, while connecting to the energy inherent in reaching an audience, that my writing had a dynamic purpose.

The work you're reading here is work in progress. I realize that that has drawbacks, but I believe it compensates for those drawbacks with energy, the dinamism of active creativity.

Brent

Repairing the Ship

Life is a wave, at sea;
It takes you places.
And you have to let go,
Believing, at your core
That it will take you
Where you must go.

To hope is not enough,
Nor even to dream.
We must allow ourselves
To be the water;
We must allow ourselves
To be the sea.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2020 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

This Gentle Wind

From when comes this eco, this signal of the past?
From these tapered rooms, with their quiet sorrows?
Or from the long drawn out, half-smiles
Of our ancestral hosts, mad in the halfcocked night?

You who judge me, who judge such wreakage,
How has your bright heart been butchered?
When has the gentle wind of such a night,
Breathed so sadly into your quiet rooms?

Brent Hightower
Copyright Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

This Time We Truly are "All In"

I was on the verge of closing this blog, but a sudden, major increase in hits has made me decide it might be worthwhile to retain it, rather than start afresh on another site. I'll have to see if I can actually work with the new format here on blogger, which seems far worse than the old one. So, in spite of the personal battering, the losses, the disillusionment, the berievement of recent times, here we go:


To those of you who've sat on the sidelines in previous elections – who’ve taken the benefits of democracy for granted -- yes you! I see you there, sitting in the corner!

Thus far you’ve avoided participation without having to feel any deep, personal regrets. Well, that won’t happen in this election, because this election is nothing less than a referendum on civilization itself.

If Trump wins, or if we allow him to be "installed," America will never be the same again. The liberty Americans take for granted is being challenged by this self-avowed would-be dictator and his cohorts, and those who sit out this election may very well be consigning their children to slavery.

Western civilization was founded upon the principles of the enlightenment, including a belief in the inalienable rights of mankind. These principles have been chipped away at incrementally, but doggedly, in America for forty years and their very survival is now at stake.

There is no law of nature that says we cannot be killed by civil strife, or enslaved by despots. Only a set of mutually accepted founding ideas have saved us from that fate, and have done so for well over two hundred years.

Perhaps we need to be reminded, after all these years of greater or lesser degrees of democracy, that dictatorship is a nightmare. I hope we won't be reminded the hard way.

The Enlightenment brought us out of the Dark Ages, and the decline we are presently seeing in America isn’t due to following those enlightened principals, but to our slow abandonment of them; and we already see the looming specter of those infamous scourges of darker times - famine, pestilence, and war.

We have seen the outline of their thinking, and it is nothing but the reestablishment of that ancient axis of oppression this nation was founded to oppose – that of dictatorial power, coercive religion and economic enslavement! Anyone who would chose such a path through the mere fault of being too apathetic to vote is inwardly a slave and will, no doubt, soon outwardly be one as well.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2020 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

Au Revoir, For Now

It's quite clear to me that the way Google has "fixed" blogger, their intention is to do away with the feature altogether. That would be typical corporate methodology, to attract people with "people friendly" services and then slowly do away with them!

I'm not certain now whether I'll create a new blog on Wordpress, or just devote myself to other work. I guess time will tell.

Thank you all very much for reading the hundreds of posts here, some of which later found there way into my books. It's been a pleasure.

Brent

Mental Restorations

Let’s get real: I’m sitting in my apartment on a beautiful day in Hilo. It’s sunny and there’s a fall chill in there air here on the ocean. I wanted to go out, but my auto-immune disease is acting up again, so I have to treat my skin, which is laborious, and depressing.

This damned illness has diminished my life for 15 years, and along with a minor heart attack, bleeding ulcers, sleep apnea, chronic sinusitis major depression, osteoporosis from taking prednisone, and other conditions, left me unable to work.

This host of problems is common with auto immune illnesses. They can’t be cured, are still little understood, and in my case only somewhat treatable. Maybe the worst of it is, I don’t appear that sick so I’m afraid people think I’m goldbricking, as I’ve had to bow out of life and retreat to this goddamned room.

From poverty and boredom, I started writing fiction on those days I was well enough and that’s helped - at least with sense of purpose - but it’s made no money at all after publishing costs, and it hasn’t gotten me out and engaged with life.

With the death of my wife, Lauren, on the 31st of July, I reached an impasse. I had to face the decision of whether to live or die, of whether there remains anything worth living for.

Yesterday, I went with a new friend, Micha, to take some needed items to a veteran living down in Kalapana, and when I got home, I came to a banal sort of epiphany. That is that I had to make the decision to live or die and get on with it.

Because I have a daughter I love very much, and my wife wanted me to live in order to be there for her, I made the decision to live; though my spirit would prefer to be where Lauren is, and I feel crushed and disoriented without her.

I don’t mean to imply that it was an easy decision, or to make light of the struggle with life! Not mine or anyone else’s. I know full well how hard it is to go on when faced with certain aspects of reality, and how the inevitability of our own mortality can cast everything in a futile light.

In my opinion those who condemn others for suicide need to walk in that other person’s shoes, and that isn’t possible. Yet I know that for myself, refusing to face the decision would be worse than either choice. Life would become nothing but ongoing anxiety and depression.

So. I’ve decided to live and to get involved (to the degree that I'm able) with the non-profit Micha is founding, called Mental Restorations.

The aim of this nonprofit is to restore boats and create a farm, so that veterans and first responders (as well as others in crisis) can have an opportunity to fish, scuba dive, garden, get away from the routine of their lives, and restore some sanity and optimism. Of equal importance, the goal is to provide a platform for peer-counseling among the community of those involved.

I can think of no more worthy aspiration.

So from creative writing, I’m going to change my focus for awhile to grant writing, peer-counseling, and whatever else I find that I can do to help this venture get off the ground. I’ve done this kind of thing before. In the early 90s my wife and I spent 7 years reviving a food coop in Marquette Michigan that was closing and put it on a sound financial footing. The last I heard it had 8,000 members, 80 employees, and was doing about 13 million in sales annually.

So here we go! It seems I was destined for poverty and these utopian adventures! Well, it may not empower my life, at least financially, but it beats brooding, alcoholism, or suicide! So here’s to the next quixotic adventure!

Brent Hightower

The Heir Apparent

With The Heir Apparent, I've completed the five books I've been working on since 1999. They are all available on Amazon, and digital versions sell for $2.99, on Amazon Kindle. I'm also running a brief promotion on some of the ebooks. These will be listed briefly at $0.99.

For various reasons then I'm now going to take a break from writing. How long, I don't know. Much depends on the level of interest in these finished works. I will keep this blog and my Amazon writer's page active, until I have some clear vision of what comes next in life.

I think that with 27,000 hits Riding on the Storm has been a success for a blog of this type.
Thank you all for making it so,

Brent

The Future

I don’t know at the moment how much I’ll be contributing to this blog in the future. One reason is that if Biden loses the upcoming election, I won’t see a point in contributing essays, or social commentary, anymore. When I was young there were a lot of us who thought we could change the world for the better. Now the question is whether we can hang on to some sort of recognizable civilization at all. If Trump wins we are done for, and there will be no reason to chronicle the inevitable decline and fall.

A storm of feeling is coming over me these days. I’m struggling to comprehend those feelings and get honest with them, in order to put them down. That’s always the difficult thing about writing, but at the moment it’s more so, through the sheer intensity of them all.

I am going through one of those moments that are life changing. My beloved wife died not two months ago, and right now, today, I’m completing the last of five books I’ve been working on for twenty years. The sign posts could not be more obvious.

Not only do I not know if I’ll be contributing to this blog in the future, I don’t know if I even have a future. The loss of Lauren is devastating, and I’ve put my remaining strength into these books, while writing, as an occupation, seems to now belong to a handful of corporate owned products, like Michael Creighton, and Danielle Steele.

Meanwhile, I struggle with a serious auto immune disease and other health problems, planetary extinction is off the charts, the ecosystem nears collapse. The world I’ve known and cared about seems to be dying. Whether there is a purpose for me in it, I don’t yet know.

Thanks,

Brent

My collection of poems, published digitally on Kindle

I published my collection of poems today, digitally, through Amazon Kindle. I don't particularly like publishing poems digitally, because I care about the whole esthetic experience of reading poetry. Yet it seems people read more books digitally now, because the price is right. In this case just $2.99. They should be available on Amazon within a few days. I can't link to Amazon here, so please go to Amazon.com and enter "Brent Hightower." These are not your grandmother's poems. If you don't want to read work that comes from the current world they may not be for you.

Thanks.

P.S. Along with my poems I finally managed to reedit my novel, Ode To Belladonna, which I now feel as proud of as The Broken World. Mali Dahl also helped me tremendously by reediting my collection of essays, Inner Demons. Both are also available on Amazon. My new novel, The Heir Apparent, will be coming out this autumn.

Goodbye, My Love

My wife, Lauren, died on the 31st of July. I’m going through our house, rearranging things, throwing things out and putting things away, partly because whenever I see something of hers it brings up a host of memories that are overwealmingly painful . Of course I want to save many of her things. I’m putting many of them away in boxes, for a time I’ll be strong enough to endure seeing them again, and maybe even enjoy those memories.

As I look at each thing it takes me on a journey back down the years. And now, it makes me more than want to cry. It makes me want to crawl into a hole and die. I feel myself falling into a hole that goes down forever into darkness, and I’m too weary to even feel.
I don’t know why I feel the need to say these things. Everyone knows, everyone can imagine death and what it means. Why this need to unburden myself, by laying some part of this burden on someone else. It seems another cruel thing about death, this way that misery has of wanting company.

I have no answers for any of this, but only look forward to a time when every nuance of the past doesn’t bring with it some subtly different shade of pain.
Yet I also feel her spirit here, in this room, and I feel her benevolence, her kind energy, and that she doesn’t want me to grieve. Goodbye my Lauren, my wife, my life.

Brent Hightower

The Future of the Democratic Party

Before I post this I'll preface it by saying, "Yes, I'm voting for Biden!" Even though I strongly backed Sanders in the primary, I'm voting for Biden!

Assuming Democrats win the election, there will be two ways of thinking about how to go forward. One will be for Democrats to take the political center, and in so doing marginalize the Republican party as a fringe group, thus becoming the party of the majority.

The alternative will be to combat the radical right-wing agenda of the modern Republicans with an alternative vision, one that actively seeks to heal the deep inequities in American society through activist policies.

On the surface the first vision seems logical, but upon further scrutiny it falls apart altogether. The election of Trump itself is an indication of how profoundly disaffected Americans are with the status quo! If the Democrats become, by placing themselves in the center, apologists for the way things are, they will face swift political annihilation.

Our situation is very similar to that which Roosevelt faced in 1932. We should take his actions as the perfect model for how we face the current situation. Democrats must do nothing less then completely reverse the prevailing attitudes of the last 40 years. Only if Americans see a significant change in their personal fortunes, and the conditions of their communities, will Democrats prevail, even in the short run. If Democrats don't prevail we will likely face some new form of fascism.

The Sea in Storm

In the indefinite light of evening,
Signals flash from out along the bay,
Seemingly as distant as a waking dream,
And the long, low, face of the sea
Reaches for aye into the ebbing gleam,
As if this sea were time itself, and life,
And the waning sun their sheer uncertainty.

These beacons telegraph in short bursts,
Green, then red, then green again,
And are so emblematic of life itself to me,
The two colors dispersed in oncoming night
Communicate their lack of all conviction.
As if in life's storm they are uncertain,
And I, likewise, cannot find my way.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2020 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

The Meaning Of It All

I’m with my wife, Lauren, tonight, and she’s slowly dying. She had cancer and the result of the radiation treatment was that it killed too much tissue, so she’s dying. She’s delirious most of the time, and in great pain, although I’m able now to treat that pretty effectively. But I’m not going to talk about that, at least not directly. I’m going to talk (probably in a somewhat rambling fashion) about some of the thoughts that have gone through my mind tonight.

You might think that mortality would bring people together, through its very finality. Because we're here only a short time, you’d think we'd learn to appreciate one another (and certainly there is an element of that in death and dying.) Many people selflessly dedicate their lives to easing pain and providing comfort, and people certainly do offer sympathy when there’s death and dying in a family.

But in the larger sense, even mortality isn’t enough to get us to let our guards down, to allow us to trust our fellow man, and this is something we should ponder very seriously, for its implications.

It has to do with the nature of this existence. Every creature on earth (and we are not exceptions), is forced to the struggle to survive, and this inevitably makes us all natural antagonists. That is the reason we don’t let our guards down.

Love leaves us vulnerable to those who do not feel love, and there are many who, for various reasons, mainly genetic, do not feel love. The rest of us know this, but mostly on a subliminal level, because to allow ourselves the conscious knowledge of it is simply too psychically damaging.

These are the predators among us, and those capable of feeling love spend much of their lives, much of their psychic energy, on fabricating excuses for them, while those who don’t feel love become the dominators.

My wife's life has been defined by her struggle to understand, and attempt to articulate, this seemingly simple and yet terribly complex and hidden aspect of human nature. It is the aspect of our natures that leaves humanity so hopelessly incapable of establishing lasting harmony, in either families or society itself.

These predators often rule over others, and do so ruthlessly, because they generally have the most drive to attain power, and the descent, loving, caring human beings, who suffer at their hands often spend their life's energy making excuses for them, because the full realization that someone close to us is such a being, is often too terrible to endure.

Many of humanities seemingly endless problems stem from this one failing, not so much of our making (not even the predators, who generally didn't choose to be that way) as that of this existence itself. It's easy to see, in that context, that these people are to be pitied. Yet to do so is dangerous.

Religion, democracy, law and a hundred other human social mechanisms exist, simply as an attempt to mitigate against this human failing.

I write this now simply because of the nature of our times, and out of what I see as the meaning of our lives - those of myself, my wife, and daughter. We have struggled, in our relatively insignificant way, to bring this truth to light.

In historical terms, and in those of larger human society, this dilemma can be grasp maybe most easily in the rise of Hitler, and in the appeasement of him by Neville Chamberlain.

Chamberlain, the ultra-civilized man, simply couldn’t believe that Hitler wanted another war, after the recent, horrible, and pointless bloodletting of World War I. Chamberlain, the ultra-civilized man, simply didn’t understand the nature of people like Hitler.

If humanity is to survive and rediscover a life worth living in modern times, it will only be when the majority (and yes, I do believe the feeling human beings are in the majority!) come to see this clearly, and never let it out of their consciousness again.

Yes, sadly some of us are wolves, nay hyenas, for wolves are social animals; and the rest of us had better learn, no matter how much it goes against our innately peaceable natures, to never again be sheep. . .

Yet I sincerely believe that our spirit’s are pointed towards someplace higher, and so for myself, and my family, and ultimately for us all, I have hope. For reasons we don't understand we live in a violent, transitory world. One in which we're allowed to glimpse the higher reality of love and truth, albeit through a veil of suffering. I don’t believe that glimpse is for nothing.

I write this tonight to honor my wife, Lauren, that most unusual of people in modern times, a philosopher. She has not showed even one hint of fear in the face of death. It’s the living that time and again, her heart goes out to.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2020 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

A Brief Personal Note

I'm going to do something a bit unusual for me here, and that's to just write down some brief thoughts about my life, my work, and the nature of our times.

In the last several years I've become aware that my writing's taken a darker tone. This isn't something I've done consciously. As a writer (or at least as one who does the kind of writing I'm interested in) one can only work with what comes from the spirit. There's simply no point otherwise, because nothing else can illuminate the things that matter.

If then one stays true to the spirit, their work inevitably reflects the times and conditions of their life, and these are dark times for me personally, and for America as a whole.

Yet I don't believe it follows that such writing is negative. What it is, is challenging. In order to overcome dark times, I believe, we must confront them and try to understand why they are what they are, for that's the only process that can free us.

Retreating into fantasies of a happier past, where it's forever 1958 (the approach too many Americans have taken recently to address current problems) is to disarm in the face of danger. Above all, I think, trying times demand courage. So in my new novel and my poetry I've chosen not to retreat, but rather to dive into the wreck and see what may be discovered there, be it skeletons or sunken treasure.

I hope that you, my potential readers, will likewise choose not to shy away from the psychic challenge of our times, and in keeping with that outlook, will be willing to read my work.

Brent Hightower
Copyright Brent Hightower 2020
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

On Feminism

When the feminist movement started, in the early 1970's, America was completely male dominated and a great many men treated women like not very bright children. The accepted wisdom was that women couldn't make important decisions, hold responsible jobs, or be trusted with any real measure of independence. Worse, many women were routinely abused by their spouses, or other family members: abuse that often took place openly and was considered "a man's prerogative." So there were ample reasons for women to form an equality movement.

Since that time I've always considered myself pro-feminist, but recently I've had growing reservations.

In the current zeal over feminism (sparked in part by the "Me Too Movement"), it's worth considering how feminism might be co-opted to advance a regressive agenda, thus rendering it a tool for social oppression rather than liberation, and creating a backlash against the women's movement. We should examine that possibility and interrelated issues very seriously, because when one considers the key role of women in society, what's at stake is the fate of civilization.

Along with racism, feminism has been constantly in the news for almost a decade now, and in that same decade we've witnessed a culminating effort on the part of a few wealthy, powerful, individuals, to establish oligarchy in the United States. Our democracy is now gravely imperiled. Yet we hear relatively little about that in the media. That story, the story of oligarchy itself, has been relegated to the back pages if it's mentioned at all.

The point here is that feminism and racism are being used by the media as diversions, to cloak the defining story of our times. That is the establishment of a wealthy, ruling-class, in place of our democracy, and if we the people lose our democracy it will no longer matter what we think about racism, or sexism, or any other aspect of American society, because expressing opinions is the privilege of a free people, and we will no longer be free people.

That's why the issue of class trumps that of racism and sexism in America in our era! This is particularly true in an election year, when we desperately need to unite around a candidate who can lead us out of the long nightmare of cutthroat capitalism, that has economically brought the vast majority of Americans to their knees. And that's why the corporate media (the tools of oligarchy) endlessly publish stories about racism and sexism, while saying little to nothing about the uniting and much more dangerous issue of class. They are fostering a lie by omission, the preferred method of doing so in our times.

When all Americans have prospered, tensions between the races and sexes have been greatly improved. Indeed, general prosperity may be the only really effective tool we have to promote social equality. We see this clearly from our own recent history. The widely prosperous era of the 1950's 60's and 70's, saw the greatest social gains for women and minorities in our history, the simple reason being that hate is to a great degree the outcome of fear, and people don't feel as much fear and anxiety in a prosperous era.

So if not for altruistic reasons, then out of simple expediency, those in favor of free society should remember that the numerical majority of poor and oppressed people in America are White. Indeed, it may be said that the majority of Americans are oppressed poor and lower class whites, and their grievances are very legitimate. Yet they are routinely ignored, or worse, laughed at by the supposedly liberal, corporate-owned, media; and also by the New Democrats, who've abandoned a policy to improve the lot of the great majority of Americans, of all races and sexes, thus leaving us effectively, with one pro-corporate political party that goes by two names - Democrats and the Republicans.

I'll cite an example of how feminists are being manipulated by the media, or are simply evolving in ways that may ultimately damage their own cause, taking the case of Senator Al Frankin as a example. Before being brought down by allegations of sexual misconduct, Frankin was the most popular Democrat in the Senate, winning re-election to a second term by a margin of over 60%. This, along with his name recognition as a popular comedian, made him a tremendous potential asset to the Democratic party. Then, in a shameful display of targeted rumor and innuendo he was pressured to resign to atone for vague and unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct, by fellow Democrats! My own Senator, Mazie Hirono, a colleague of Frankin's, spearheaded this effort to pressure him into resigning, without any evidence that would have stood-up in court.

(This point regarding a court of law is very important, because the extra-legal nature of actions like those against Frankin - this sort of trial by rumor and innuendo - leaves feminists open to the accusation of conducting witch hunts.)

If people are to be judged and convicted in the court of public opinion, then every sexually active man, or woman, could be smeared with such allegations and forced to resign in disgrace, if only the establishment wants to get them badly enough! Senator Hirono's excuse for subjecting Frankin to this farcical trial by allegation was that she did so to gain moral credibility, in order to then force the resignation of Brett Cavanaugh from the Supreme Court, in light of the much more serious and more substantiated charges of rape, leveled against Cavanaugh. And whether that argument, on Hirono's part, makes sense on the face of it, or not, she failed to carry it through, for Cavanaugh remained in office. All she, and her associates, managed to do was ruin the career of a colleague - a hugely popular fellow Democrat who was one of the most genuine public servants in Washington!

Along with the Me Too Movement (the motives of which I believe are sound, if not always the methods) there's a more hard-core outlook developing among certain Feminists these days, which is far more suspect in my mind, and this is to see men as the problem in the world; in that men are more aggressive, warlike and violent than women, while women are more nurturing, loving and socially responsible. Therefore women alone should rule society.

We, in America, are the victims of our own myths. Take the myth of the rugged individual who doesn't need anything from anyone, but can get by on his own, by "pulling himself up by his own boot straps." It's a myth, of course, because it's impossible in modern society. Everyone in modern society depends on the efforts of thousands of others to obtain the necessities for survival. The most remote rancher needs thousands of people, to make necessities like clothing, cooking utensils, barbed wire, medicine, transportation, communications, etc., etc. So what is the point of this myth? What is its effect on society? Does it make us stronger and more independent, or weaker by enshrining in our culture a misapprehension, in turn fostering hatred for the dependent and the social safety net? And now, just as we have the dubious myth of the rugged individual, we are developing a feminine myth. The myth of the "Earth Mother," presenting women as all-wise, all-loving and uniquely tied to the cycles of nature; whereas men are, in contrast, comparatively ignorant, violent, and loveless. In this view women are not seeking equality with men, but asserting superior to men, morally and spiritually. We have come full circle.

So, what of the claim that women are more loving, nurturing, and moral than men? First, for the sake of argument, let's assume women really are endowed to be more nurturing. Then, since the world outside the home is inherently competitive, when women enter the workforce this impulse toward self-effacing sacrifice may become counter-productive. The precipitous fall in the American standard of living coincided with women entering the workforce, in large numbers, in the 1970s, largely because the size of the workforce suddenly doubled, lowering everyone's wage earning potential, but it may also be true that women have proved less able to withstand the intimidation targeted towards employees by employers. The fall of the trade union movement (the one remaining social institution that has fairly reliably stood for workers, against management) coincided with women entering the workforce. In my own working experience I've known women who adopted a role of self-sacrifice towards their employers, and were proud of it. They felt that it made them good employees. Whereas (again, in my experience), men tend to be instinctively more adversarial with employers. Which of these stances is more likely to net collective gains for workers?

Yet to what degree is it really true that women are more inherently civilized than men? For at bottom that is the assertion here. The answer is, maybe not as much as might be supposed. What, for example, became of the high hopes for social regeneration promised by women's suffrage? Has it materialized?

As voters, women have proven little more socially conscious than men, if at all. Where is the more compassionate society we were promised as the dividend for woman's suffrage. If you asked a radical feminist that question today, she would likely find a way to blame men! I've had that conversation myself, and been told that their husbands have intimidated them into voting for the usual megalomaniacs and fools of American politics over the last 75 years, right alongside men. Well, do their husbands follow them into the voting booth and twist their arms?

And what of women in politics, here and abroad? Those who have come to prominence have stood behind the reactionary status-quo at least to the same degree as have men in comparative rolls. Indeed, since women got the vote, we've had some of the most socially regressive governments in our history, culminating with those in power right now, including Donald Trump, Mitch McConnoll and Brett Cavanaugh. Clearly something is askew here! Some gulf exists between the rhetoric of the woman's movement and the reality of women's nature.

Another problem with this vision that men are inferior because they are more aggressive, and less civilized, is the law of sexual selection. Just as the peacock gets his plumage from the choices made by the pea hen, so men get their aggression from women's choice of a partner, so if men are overly aggressive it's because women wanted them that way. And here I don't fault women overly much, for it's perfectly understandable. Women have chosen aggressive men as mates because those men have been more effective at carving out a place for themselves and their families in a hostile, competitive world. What is at fault here is the Darwinian nature of survival itself.

If men suddenly disappeared, women would be forced to become more aggressive in order to deal with the inherently dangerous and competitive nature of existence. Nevertheless, it seems a bit self-serving of women to complain about aggressive traits in men that they've fostered themselves, for the sake of their own security. Thus, the myth of the "Earth Mother" is seen to be as deluded as that of the "rugged individual."

That so many feminists are willing to overlook so many aspects of the human condition, including something as fundamental as the law of sexual selection, to promote the idea of their superiority, is a strong indication that they are no different than men when it comes to the desire for power and a willingness to abuse it. We are all human.

The simple truth is we are all very much alike. Our endless desire to push the blame for our collective natures onto some other group merely proves what we all know and won't face, that collectively, as a species, we are pathologically self-deluded and deeply flawed creatures. Human beings share an enormously high proportion of genes in common. Despite our disparate appearances, due to a past die-out that reduced our numbers to a mere 5,000 individuals, we are more closely related then even Cheetahs. Like it or not, we are very similar in our collective behavior as a species, regardless of how different we may appear on the surface, exactly because we are so genetically related. This understanding of our essential similarity is one on which progressive movements have long been based. One must make this distinction here between collective behavior and individual behavior, which among humans is very widely differing and unpredictable. Yet neither aberrant behavior, nor heroic behavior, is limited to a particular race or sex. So when people make the argument that any one group is inherently better or worse than others, they undermine the notion on which all socially progressive movements are based, that of our collective equality.

It's akin to making the argument that all people are equal, but "Some people are more equal than others," as George Orwell put it so succinctly in his novel, Animal Farm. For women and minorities to make the argument is very dangerous for the rights of women and minorities. For if it can be argued that there's a fundamental difference in people's levels of aggression, disinterestedness and evil then that argument will always, ultimately, benefit the strong. The urgent truth is that we need to move beyond this simplistic reasoning, this sort of juvenile, "he said, she said," that plays so neatly into the hands of a self-deluded ruling class who are leading us down a rabbit hole.

The truth is, we're guilty of indulging in many, many, comforting delusions, both in our personal lives and in the larger human society. We may, for example, blame war on fascism, or communism, as if those things existed in the real world, like trees. We project our flaws so routinely on other people and things, one must conclude there's actually something in us effectively blocking out the things we'd prefer not to know. In other words, there's a strong argument to be made for the idea that human beings dissociate in mass, and if one thinks about it that's a very serious problem indeed.

In the end we desperately need to look up from our lives and our own particular troubles to examine what it really is to be human! This world is consumed in misery and the key to our salvation lies within. Socrates said it 2,500 years ago, and his words are still true today. He also said, "The un-examined life is not worth living." We can now one-up that statement by saying that the un-examined life can no longer be lived.
We must stop this endless bickering, own up to the fact that we are deeply flawed, and put together some program to address that fact.

We must henceforward put our primary effort into advancing psychology, philosophy, spirituality and the humanities - into every conceivable endeavor to help us understand ourselves. In order to survive the great challenges of the 21st century we must commit as great a portion of our resources to understanding our own natures as we did, in the 20th, to understanding technology. Above all, we must stop this juvenile shame and blame game. Now is the time to get real! As Willy Lowman said in Death of a Salesman, "The woods are burning!" And if there ever was a time for Willy to get real it was in the last act, before he finally cracks-up from the weight of his own lies, and everything falls apart. But Willy couldn't get real to save his life. Can we?

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2020 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

Liliuokalani Gardens

Liliuokalani Park, in Hilo, is named after an Hawaiian queen, but it's a traditional Japanese garden, designed by a master Japanese gardener and the more I go there, the more I like it. A thing unique about the garden in my experience of such spaces in America, and a feature of the traditional Japanese garden, is that though it's a small park it feels very spacious - an effect produced by great attention to detail.

In my small understanding of Japanese culture, I must rely on first impressions and given that, I'm impressed by their architecture - particularly their landscape architecture. Wherever you stand in Liliuokalani Garden you get a number of views, each one quite different. In a particular spot you might see a pond with a bridge over it and a stand of burnished, golden bamboo. Looking another direction from that same spot, you may see a beech with ironwood trees, rock outcroppings and Native Hawaiian ferns. Again, from that same spot, you might see a completely different tableau, all blended seamlessly, so that the effect is never jarring, but quite natural. One encounters it without even being aware of it. As you walk around, you feel you've really been somewhere, in a very small space.

That is the magic of the garden. It fills you with a feeling that's soothing, contemplative and somehow emotionally restorative. Entering consciously into that effect - into that calming, centered, feeling in the mind - gives us some understanding of Zen Buddhism. To me, it's similar to that produced by mild green tea, calming, yet mildly stimulating and restorative.

I've been walking in the garden four or five times a week for exercise and have come to be enchanted by the place.

Last week, on Thursday, I walked there in the morning. It's particularly beautiful just after dawn on a sunny morning, because on the east side of the island, as the sun rises, it strikes clouds that gradually build-up against the slopes of Mauna Loa, producing rainbows and brilliant color-effects, in and around, the Garden. On that morning, as I walked toward the ocean I entered a space where a rainbow was forming in the air around me, and rain dogs (snatches of rainbow hanging freely in the air) were materializing over the bay and against the mountain. It was spectacular!

There was a particularly dazzling luminescent vibration of the air - a kind of glowing light and I was suddenly conscious of feeling really good, physically and mentally, for the first time since childhood. It was that strong a feeling - not just of feeling okay, or feeling pretty good - but of feeling an exaltation I haven't experienced in 50 years! It was as if for a few hours I were in Heaven!

If only I knew why? Why, for two hours there, did I feel so good? In adulthood, we turn to alcohol, or marijuana, because we long for that feeling we had as children. How wonderful it was to feel that again, and to know that it wasn't produced by some substance, but was real - that it was produced by just whatever was going on inside me and around me at the time! I know the Garden had everything to do with it.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2020 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com